


Finding James

by zulu



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Character of Colour, Community: hl_bday_drive, Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-02
Updated: 2010-10-02
Packaged: 2017-10-13 12:44:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/137502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zulu/pseuds/zulu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Foreman's not done atoning, and Wilson needs to hurt less.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding James

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daasgrrl](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=daasgrrl).



> Thank you to my betas, thedeadparrot, bell, raz0rgirl, and little_missmimi.

_i. Tell me how to do this._

Foreman sits with Victoria's slack hand in his for a long time. There is only his breathing, unmingled with hers. He should move, but he's weighted down, his chest and throat knotted. Shafts of light cut in through the vertical blinds from the hallway and stripe the bed. Under his stroking thumb, the thin skin of Victoria's knuckles is dry and chapped. He can almost picture his mother's soft hands in their place. He holds them every time he goes home, and he hates going home for how much it hurts to pull back from her when he leaves.

The fever-heat in Victoria's flesh has faded, and the first slack suppleness of death is turning to stiffness. He's a doctor but he's never stayed with the dead like this, thinking about who they are and where they've come from. He can't imagine Marc's hands ever turning cool and stiff; the last time he felt Marc's hand it was a shove to his chest and a shout to get his sanctimonious ass out of his brother's life. Probably the coroner who eventually records Marc's death won't bother with more than a brisk tug of the sheet over his face. Who bothers to get the story? It's not like he had a life, a family, before.

Foreman gets up and crosses to the door, sliding it open to let in the squeak and murmur of the night-time hospital. Squinting against the light, he calls a nurse. He's already written the time of death on Victoria's chart. Since he's no longer needed, in so many senses of the word, he leaves.

House isn't in the office, but Foreman doesn't feel in the mood to be grateful for small mercies. Victoria's comics are still there, thick lines and bold colours. Foreman picks one up as if there's a mystery still to solve, and clues still to be found. His own face, priggish and irritable, glares up at him from one sheet, with 4-MAN scratched on the name tag. Foreman stuffs the sheaf in with Victoria's vomit-stiffened belongings. They'll be disposed of by whoever comes--if anyone does--to take care of a woman's remains who might just as well have stayed a Jane Doe.

House disappeared without scoring any more points off Foreman. Why Foreman knows homeless people, _hates_ homeless people. The answers aren't as simple as House likes to think. Marc wouldn't take handouts even when he was squatting in a shooting gallery, but he'd rifle a wallet for his brother's spare cash when he needed a fix. But he's not homeless, no. Not for the next five years, down in Middleton. _Chew on that, House._

There's no one here to be defiant at. No one to hate, no one to care. Wilson was the only one who did, seeing past Victoria's sad attention-grab to the illness underneath. Foreman can't pretend that he had any sort of compassion for her. Her only mistake was bad road conditions, icy October weather. She wasn't a drug addict back then. Does that mean he's allowed to care retroactively? That he's not hypocritical now that he knows enough about her to redeem what she became? He snorts and shakes his head. He's not going to tangle himself in justifications. The plain fact is, Foreman shouldn't be allowed to grieve. He hasn't earned it.

He shuts off the lights as he leaves the conference room and heads down the hall. Wilson's office door is closed. Foreman tightens his borrowed coat around his shoulders and doesn't bother knocking. Downstairs, his eyes are drawn to Victoria's room despite himself. It's empty, bright, its only occupant a janitor in the middle of sterilizing it for the next patient. God, Foreman can't believe it was just that easy for her to disappear. That he wanted her to disappear like that.

Clear, sharp, and indifferent, the cold has settled in. Foreman blows through his fingers and hurries to his car. As soon as the engine's on, he turns the heater to high. House said the second reason he'd take the case was because Wilson wanted him to so badly. House could see that Wilson had his own reasons. Something in his past to expiate. Wilson wanted to see someone worth rescuing. What the hell did he see?

Only what Foreman saw, when they sat in the spider-webbed, dust-moted dimness, and realized, together, that Victoria wasn't just dying. She was dying alone.

 

 _ii. All I can do now is not make any more mistakes._

Wilson's home isn't difficult to find, not when Foreman has practised breaking in to so many places for House's amusement. It's a pretty, mid-century detached house, with a patch of garden that looks manicured to within an inch of its life even in the winter, and a gleaming driveway. There's a single light on over the garage door. Parked across the street, Foreman slumps back in the driver's seat as the cold, cracked air invades his car and the chill seeps through his clothes. Foreman's not going to knock, just to wait around being polite and deferential. If Wilson's wife answered the door, what the hell could he say? How can you _want_ to save someone who doesn't want to be saved? How can you still care about someone who's hurt you every step of the way?

A sweep of headlights makes him squint. Wilson's Volvo pulls up onto the driveway and sighs softly as the engine switches off. Foreman tightens his hands on the steering wheel. Wilson climbs out, looking like winter; stiff and creaky and faded. Standing with the car door still open, he stares at it as if he's forgotten what the next step might be. With a sigh, his shoulders fall. He lifts a hand to the back of his neck and squeezes, bracing himself with the other hand against the top of his car, as if he can't imagine walking in to his own home.

Christ, Foreman doesn't know why he's here. Infected with House's curiosity, maybe. Why'd Wilson want to take the case? What does he know that Foreman doesn't? Before he knows what he's doing, Foreman gets out of his car. The door chunks shut solidly behind him. "Wilson," he says, crossing the street, wary of making Wilson jump if he comes at him out of the darkness without warning.

Foreman has taken classes on telling people they're dying. He knows the theory, but not the practice. Wilson feels more, takes every death to heart. Maybe the one lesson Foreman has learned better is how to let someone ruin their own life. When Wilson turns, Foreman lifts an ironic eyebrow, at himself, for being here, for asking for more than Wilson should ever be called upon to give. _We can make you comfortable_ , Foreman thinks--it's a lie, said to patients--but something in Wilson's bowed shoulders makes him think that this time he can offer real comfort.

"Is it my night for being followed?" Wilson asks, meeting his eyes with a sort of resigned gentleness.

Wilson's no more than five years older, but Foreman feels like he's looking at him as if he's child asking impossible questions. _Why do we die?_ Ordinarily, Foreman would bristle, affronted at Wilson's patronizing attitude. But it's _not_ patronizing, not exactly. Wilson wishes he had the answers too; he's just more at peace, maybe, with never getting them.

If he's waiting for Foreman to ask for absolution, he's got the wrong idea entirely. "I was right about her," Foreman tells him. Wilson saw Victoria as a person, and he made Foreman see how someone could be with her at the end. Great; so what? She still died, and they can't save every homeless person on the streets. Each and every one of them has a tragic story, and Foreman has listened to more than his share. "But that didn't matter to you."

Wilson laughed softly, but it was more morose than derisive. "No, it didn't," he said. "Why are you here? To win the argument?"

Foreman lets out a short breath. His shoulders drop from their tight hunch, and he tilts his head, as if he's learned to see Wilson from the right angle. Wilson's mild attitude doesn't match the way he was barely holding himself together a moment before Foreman got out of his car. "I don't think anybody won," he says, as honestly as he can. He sat with Victoria as she was dying, and, suspended in this moment, there seems to be something of the same atmosphere. The sense of waiting, of a gradually eroding crack that could split wide open at any moment. Victoria wanted to be forgiven. Maybe that's what Wilson wants, too. Or needs.

Foreman steps forward, casual and careful. He doesn't know what part of Wilson to reach for. Not his hand, the way he'd done with Victoria. Her skin was so chapped, so split with sores; Foreman washed his own hands afterwards, watched the water carry the soap away down the drain. Victoria vanished that easily. Wilson's the king of acting like everything's fine, but Foreman's not content to let the past stay buried, or to pretend it doesn't matter. They've both been screwed. Why shouldn't they be comforted for that?

The way Wilson was standing as Foreman crossed the street, limned in moonlight, one elbow akimbo as he kneaded at his neck, decides Foreman. He lifts his hand and lets it land, not heavily, but strongly, at the base of Wilson's skull. Wilson's hair brushes his forefinger softly, and his skin is surprisingly warm. Foreman's thumb circles Wilson's scalene muscle, almost without any conscious design, easing tension from a knot. Wilson bends his head forward. His arms hang awkwardly loose, and he lets out one harsh breath that refuses to believe what Foreman is doing and starts to yank back. Foreman squeezes instinctively, keeping him close. Foreman steps forward, his eyes lowered; he's not sure he can look Wilson in the face. But he can rest his forehead against Wilson's. They both lost someone today. If Wilson's anything like Foreman, then it wasn't really Victoria for either of them.

 

 _iii. A lot of people are afraid of the word "dying."_

Mist escapes from their mouths. The air is still, but icy, damp. Wilson doesn't pull away, and Foreman realizes he has no damn clue what to do next. A hurt frown pulls his eyebrows together, keeping him from meeting Wilson's eyes. The movement of air from Wilson's nearly silent gasps brushes warm past Foreman's cheeks, but the rise and fall of Wilson's shoulders, under Foreman's still-massaging grip, shows how harshly he's clamping down on every breath.

Foreman wanted to give Marc every chance. He wanted him to get better. Marc was the one who refused to be helped. Foreman wants to say, _It's not your fault_. He's been telling himself that for fifteen years.

He kisses Wilson instead.

 

 _iv. When you look in her face, you're going to feel the instinct to temporize._

Wilson wrenches away with a sudden, harsh laugh. "What--what are you doing?"

Foreman tilts his chin up, lips tightening, his stare hardening a bit. Wilson's eyes are wide, dark, and more than a little frantic. Telling him _I forgive you_ probably wouldn't have panicked him any less. "Why are you saying no?" he counters.

"I'm--" Wilson cuts the objection short, so that _I'm not_ hangs very clearly between them. "I don't need--"

Foreman raises an eyebrow. "Who said anything about need?" he says, keeping the irony buried deep. Wilson has more than a few demons driving him. This afternoon, in the dank, urine-and-rot smelling house, Victoria's pictures became _someone's life_ in Wilson's hands. Someone he couldn't save. But they were never the person he was trying to save in the first place. Replacing failure with failure only keeps him running in circles. If Wilson wants so badly to make someone better, then he'd be better off starting with himself.

Wilson hasn't shrugged off his hand. Foreman finds the rigid line of muscle along his spine with the side of his knuckle, massages it firm and slow, concentrates on that touch, that movement. "Do you always say no to gifts?" he asks. If House was his best friend, he supposes he'd never trust them himself.

"Somehow I doubt this is about me," Wilson says, mildly, but dryly enough to make Foreman chuckle. If they weren't standing close enough for their coats' fabric to whisper together each time they move, then they could be in the hospital, Wilson bringing House back to earth with a deft verbal twist.

"It is if you let it be," Foreman says. _So let it_ , he thinks. House marvels at Wilson's capacity for self-denial. Foreman would rather break the pattern. He may have watched over Victoria's death, but he's not done atoning; Wilson may have been the first to care, but no one has ever made him believe that he's cared enough. Foreman moves in, head tilting, hand cupping Wilson's head more firmly. Wilson's lips are soft, cool, dry. Foreman kisses the bottom one, and then the top; finds Wilson's tongue as he instinctively moves to wet his own lips. For a moment, the heat between them is more than shared warmth.

Wilson bows his head, breaking the kiss. "Let's not...do this where the neighbours can see," he says. "Julie already hates the homeowners' association." He meets Foreman's eyes. The sweep of hair across his forehead, and the amused curve of his small, diffident smile, make him look suddenly young. "She's not home," he explains, and Foreman doesn't need to have it spelled out how rarely she is.

Instead, he lets Wilson lead him inside.

 

 _v. Let her know she's still connected to another human being._

Foreman doesn't want to give up his touch as they walk, but it feels strange, too intimate, to wrap his arm around Wilson's back with his fingers stroking his nape as they walk up to Wilson's home. Wilson goes ahead and Foreman lets him; with a click of the key, the door opens, and they walk together into the darkness of the house. Outside, the moon was full and the streetlights glowed in their skin; inside, the air is suddenly close and Foreman has to blink to adjust his eyes. He reaches out and catches Wilson's wrist, closing his fingers around it firmly, and stops him before he turns on the overhead lights. Foreman wants the darkness to help them feel, instead of the light forcing examinations and second thoughts.

Foreman feels Wilson hesitate. He closes the door behind them, and then follows up on his grip. This time when he kisses Wilson, he's not alone in it. Wilson unbends; Foreman feels his sigh when he gives up blaming himself for letting this happen. He's an inch or two taller than Foreman, so that Foreman has to lift his chin and press upwards, but he keeps his hold on Wilson's grip to anchor him, and Wilson stays close without any more insistence.

Wilson tastes cool at first. Foreman wonders if he's so self-flagellating that he didn't have the heat on in his car, or if he's actually managed to chill himself through. Maybe he was out walking, in the two or three hours since Foreman left him. Maybe he stayed in Victoria's house, looking through her memories as a way to stave off his own. But his mouth warms, and he starts to respond. He isn't exactly shy, but he hangs back, as if he's curious to see how much Foreman will ask him for.

Not everything; Foreman won't demand that. He's not looking for answers, or at least, none that Wilson can give him, none that he doesn't struggle for on his own. Foreman isn't doing this to forget. He doesn't need to know Wilson's life story to know that it matters, to know that Wilson's been shaped by his past, to know that some crash on some icy night has resulted in here and now and this.

Wilson isn't a last resort or a stopgap measure. He's someone who understands, who Foreman understands. Foreman wants him clearly and without expectation. He wants him for his past as much as his present. He squeezes his eyes shut and kisses Wilson in the dark; he reaches out with one hand to find the front of Wilson's coat, and pulls him closer.

 

 _vi. You've got this down to a science._

Wilson breaks the kiss first, with a small, amused breath. "I don't know about you, but I'm too old not to do this on a bed," he says.

Foreman's eyes have adjusted well enough that he can see the humour gleaming in Wilson's eyes. He raises his eyebrows, but it's hardly a problem if Wilson wants to move things along. His wife could be coming home, or he might simply want the space of his own home around him, instead of Foreman's determined presence. "Lead the way."

Upstairs, Wilson takes him into the master bedroom without a pause, although Foreman's mouth curves in something like smugness at how easily he lets Foreman follow him. The room has no sign of Wilson in it, with the matching duvet, dust ruffle, and pillow covers. Everything's in shades of taupe, and it's a kind of sad comment on Wilson's home life that he's allowed himself to fade into this many layers of beige. The set of his lips, the dark invitation in his eyes, none of it matches the careful surfaces. Wilson's not making false protests; hell, no protests at all. Foreman takes off his coat, his suit jacket, and loosens his tie so that he can start on the buttons of his shirt. The curtains on the windows are drawn aside, so that they have slightly more ambient light, and Foreman arches an eyebrow at Wilson when he pauses and watches. "Should I be taking yours off too?" he asks, once he's freed himself from his shirt.

Wilson shakes his head slightly. He sits down on the side of the bed and takes off his loafers first, tucking his socks inside them as if it's a habit too ingrained to be interrupted by sex. Foreman doesn't wait for more. He moves forward, until he's standing in front of Wilson, where Wilson won't be able to mistake the heat of his body or the growing scent of sweat and musk. "Lie down," he says. Not imperiously; it's a suggestion, gently meant, and Wilson shrugs off his own overthings before moving back on the bed.

"Is this going to be a problem?" Foreman asks, climbing on top of the covers and lying down beside him. He's not so confident that it isn't awkward, the way every first touch is awkward, but that's the connection he wants.

Wilson laughs shortly. "No," he says. "Julie won't find out."

Foreman's skeptical, and he doesn't bother asking if House will. House prides himself on knowing everything, but he's blind to more than one of Foreman's secrets, and Foreman thinks Wilson couldn't have stayed House's friend this long without the perverse satisfaction of keeping _something_ from him. He lets his weight down on Wilson, and as he suspected, Wilson's cold, nearly shivering, and he arches up into Foreman's body.

"If you're looking for something--" Wilson starts. "With me, or for this to mean something--"

"No," Foreman tells him. Nothing except the texture of skin and hair under his palm when he slides it up under Wilson's dress shirt. Foreman's fingers work clumsily at the buttons. He can feel the beginning of Wilson's erection against his, through their pants, and he moves his hips, the warm pleasure low in his stomach increasing with each push.

"I'm not," Wilson says, and interrupts himself with a soft, hoarse sound. "Like this," he finishes. Making excuses. So his doubts are creeping back, but that suits Foreman, because he wouldn't be here if he wanted to see Wilson perfect and unruffled.

"I don't care if you are," Foreman says. A kiss shuts Wilson up, although he moans again, quietly, as if he thinks he's not allowed. Foreman likes the way Wilson's body responds to his, his skin warming, his movements becoming sharper and needier. When he finally palms Wilson's crotch over his pants, Wilson's dick is hot and firm under the seam of his zipper.

"Foreman," Wilson pants lightly. His shirt's open, his nipples pebbled, goosebumps pricking up the hair over his chest and stomach; his eyes are blown wide, his lips parted and wet.

Foreman grins down at him--he can't help it; it's hot to see Wilson coming undone under his massaging hand. "Not what you were expecting?"

"I guess I thought you didn't care," Wilson says, with some of his usual asperity.

Foreman grunts at that. He bats Wilson's interfering hand aside and pops the button on his pants open, unzips him carefully, and lets Wilson wriggle in a completely undignified way to get the material shoved down below his hips, his shorts going with it. Wilson doesn't get it, why he's here and how he cares, but words won't prove anything to him. It's much more satisfying to heat Wilson's body inch by inch with his mouth, heading inexorably downwards. Wilson gasps as he gets the idea. His hand clutches at Foreman's shoulder, almost painfully tight, and then his dick's poking Foreman in the chin, and sliding over his cheek. Foreman inhales and turns his face to brush his beard across Wilson's glans. Wilson's startled, broken moan is everything he could have wanted, nothing stilted or restrained this time.

Satisfied, Foreman licks his lips and draws Wilson's dick into his mouth. He sucks him slowly, with every indication of _care_ that Wilson could possibly want. Wilson's grip spasms tighter on Foreman's shoulder, and then his other hand slides over Foreman's hair, fingers curling once or twice as he tries to hold on. He finally settles for his palm curving over the back of Foreman's neck, mirroring the touch Foreman offered him first, outside. His dick tastes strongly, and the scent of sweat and precome fills Foreman's nostrils. Foreman moves his head steadily, seeking out more taste, more skin, more heat, closing his eyes and concentrating on the curl of Wilson's fingers, the sharp panting sounds Wilson lets escape. He's not trying for speed, or breaking any records. He just wants to give pleasure, with all the determined thoroughness he brings to everything he does once he's set on a course of action.

Wilson struggles at first, making abortive thrusts, so that Foreman has to push Wilson's hips against the bed with one hand to avoid choking. "Foreman--God--"

Foreman sucks meditatively for a long second, and then pulls off, leaving his hand where his mouth was, jerking Wilson slowly even as he says, "Why don't you relax?"

Wilson glares at him, his dick pulsing under the firm weight of Foreman's hand. "A blow job isn't exactly a _relaxing_ \--"

"Look," Foreman says, bending his head slightly, brushing his bottom lip along Wilson's dick. "You can enjoy it. I'm not about to disappear."

Wilson drops his head back with an exasperated sigh, which Foreman takes as permission. He dips his mouth down and starts again, swirling his tongue around as if he can trace the exact line of Wilson's circumcision scar, sealing his lips around Wilson's dick and going deeper, using his hand at the base, slickened with his saliva. He pauses, waits, when Wilson's thighs tense, until Wilson gets the hint and eases back. Foreman draws it out until Wilson's trembling, his moans all but constant, and then he moves fast and deep, until Wilson spills into his mouth, sticky and bitter-salt, the spasms lasting and lasting until Wilson's hands fall from his nape and shoulder, and Foreman sits up to wipe his mouth and meet Wilson's eyes, tired and sad, but for this moment, content.

 

 _vii. What she doesn't need is a doctor who's not there with her because he made the wrong call._

"Why are we doing this?" Wilson asks. He's still breathing deeply, his chest and stomach rising and falling regularly.

"Why do you have to ask?" Foreman says. He's still hard, and the sight of Wilson's spent dick lying soft on his thigh is entirely too much of a turn on. Foreman never came here to be helped out; it was never a matter of evening a score. Wilson acts like everyone around him is that person, the one who screwed him over. Foreman's not like that. He pulls his belt open and pushes his pants off. His own hand is familiar and warm against the firm length of his dick, and he lets his eyes travel over Wilson's drained, slack muscles. He did that. Unwound Wilson from tense, jittery despair to a lazy, dark-eyed sprawl.

"If you don't want me to ask," Wilson says irritably, "then get over here."

Foreman grins. Wilson won't move, not even to reach for Foreman's dick, not even to avoid this conversation. He lies back down, along the length of Wilson's body, one hand working over his erection. He's smugly pleased not to need Wilson's hand, but it comes as a warm, welcome squeeze. Wilson looks him in the eyes as he strokes him, more intense than he's ever been at the hospital. Foreman lets his eyes fall half-shut but he doesn't refuse the stare. He wouldn't be here if he couldn't look Wilson in the eye. He wasn't lying. He's not running away. Even if Wilson's the one working to bring him off, Foreman's still the one giving; he cares enough, anyway, to be here, to be what Wilson needs. To give him a moment and a person he can trust.

Wilson's hand is strong and expert, and if there's no long tease, his touch isn't matter-of-fact either. He slows on the long upstroke when he sees Foreman likes it; he gives Foreman a tight, slick grasp to thrust into when the sensation starts to move from _like_ to _need_. "Yeah," Foreman says tightly, and again, " _Yeah_ , mmn, Wilson," as his hips move more strongly. Wilson shifts closer so that his forearm can work between them, tight and fast and hard, until Foreman groans and comes, hot and sharp and clean.

 

 _viii. You're freaking out. You should be freaking out._

Foreman rolls to his back afterwards. The bed is large enough that he can spread out, feel the cool patch of the untouched, unrumpled sheets under his back--Julie's side, he assumes. He closes his eyes, breathes in the aroma of drying semen, the acrid edge of sweat. Despite the release of coming, he's not fully relaxed. He keeps his breathing quiet, listening for Wilson's first move.

It doesn't take long. Wilson makes a tsking sound in the back of his throat--at the stickiness of his skin, Foreman thinks, because Wilson lifts his hips and tugs at the material of his shorts where Foreman rucked them up under his ass, and covers himself. Foreman managed to warm him, but the relaxation is already fading. Foreman turns his head on Wilson's wife's pillow and sees what he imagines she sees often: the tightness around Wilson's mouth, the worried crease between his eyebrows.

Foreman isn't one to overstay his welcome, but he's not going to let Wilson turn this into a walk of shame, either. He rolls back to pin Wilson briefly and waits until Wilson meets his eyes. "I'm not holding you to anything," he reminds him.

Wilson rolls his eyes, managing to look impossibly prim despite the cowlick in his hair and the wrinkled shirt he's only half-wearing. "I assume you got what you came for."

"Hey," Foreman says, the protest coming automatically, no matter what his intentions were. "I wasn't the only one here."

Wilson's mouth crimps, dissatisfied. "I--it wasn't--"

With a grimace of his own, Foreman lifts a hand to Wilson's mouth, thumbing the curl of his bottom lip. It stalls Wilson's excuses, anyway. With some regret, Foreman imagines Wilson's mouth closing around his dick, sucking him fast and deep. But that would be asking, and he's not here to make a pitch for some kind of affair that would only make them both tense and guilty. Foreman kisses Wilson again, searching for some elusive taste, as if sex might have changed Wilson's biochemistry, turned him pliant and--impossibly--happy.

Wilson kisses back slowly, and when Foreman backs off, he sighs. "Whatever happens," he says, and pauses. Foreman can easily hear _when House finds out_ behind that _whatever_ , because Wilson always plans for House's interference. "Just don't tell me it's a mistake," Wilson says.

"It wasn't," Foreman tells him. He climbs over Wilson and stands up, pulling his shorts and pants up. "And yeah," he says. "I got what I came for."

Because he knows enough to know that Wilson won't be truly happy unless he was the one giving all along.

 

 _ix. Let her see it._

Wilson gets up too, and they dress together, in a dark that hides as much as it showed before. Neither of them gets out of the bedroom unscathed. Wilson's hair is mussed; Foreman's suit is creased. Wilson follows Foreman down to the front door, as if this is a situation that calls for a good host. He waits while Foreman pulls on his jacket, and then he says, in a light, dry tone, "Thanks."

It sounds almost like a question, and Foreman levels a flat stare at Wilson. "You're welcome," he says definitely, refusing Wilson's irony. He came here for genuine reasons, whatever Wilson's smile implies.

Maybe they weren't meant to be, maybe they'll never be together again. But they sat shoulder to shoulder paging through Victoria's photographs. They had their reasons to believe in the life she led.

Foreman heads out into the frost and the silence with the taste of Wilson's abandon on his tongue.


End file.
